Google makes a grab for e-books

The internet giant has teamed up with Sony in a deal that could dominate electronic publishing, writes Matt Bingham

Google has joined forces with Sony to take on the staid world of book publishing. The internet giant aims to make up to 7m books that it has scanned from the world's libraries available for customers to download onto an electronic reading device, known as an e-reader.

The move has not only shaken traditional book publishers, but is a body- blow to Amazon, the online book retailer, which had hoped to corner the market for electronic books with its state-of-the-art e-reader, the Kindle 2.

Under the terms of a deal signed earlier this month, Google will offer an initial 500,000 digitised books as free downloads through Sony's online book store. By contrast, Amazon - previously the market leader in digital book distribution - currently offers 250,000 titles. The books can then be read on Sony's PRS-700, a hand-held device that can store about 350 titles, and allows readers to turn the digital